Dwarves seem to suffer the most of this habit, but it's an equal opportunity trope. Any character that loudly and near-constantly preempts any confusion there would be as to their race or culture as a matter of principle, or even just brags about belonging to a Proud Warrior Race, is an example of this trope.

Kind of a passive variant of Fantastic Racism. A character who does this because he's pretending to be what he constantly proclaims he is (such as a gnome trying to blend in as a dwarf) is instead a form of the Most Definitely Not a Villain trope.

Examples

Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z. This example is especially potent, as he not only likes to point out that he is a member of the proud Saiyan warrior race, but that anyone else with an ounce of Saiyan blood in them is too, creating a sort of "Have I Mentioned That You're A Dwarf Today?" scenario.

Comedy

Many comedians, including Jay Mohr, point out that their Jewish friends seem to be unable to get through a conversation without referencing the fact that they're Jewish.

Comedians whose schtick revolves around some aspect of their identity, be it female, gay, Latino, redneck and so forth, must inevitably talk about this aspect of their identity quite a lot.

Comedians who avert this trope often get praised just for that; more than one person has described Ellen DeGeneres as "the lesbian comic who knows more than one joke". Although Ellen was doing stand-up for years before coming out, her general schtick at that point was about being socially awkward.

There are plenty of straight male comics, especially older males and married men, who have routines like this too, that pretty much revolve around being a man and male identity or their concept of it, although they aren't usually criticized for this (provided they're not obnoxious about it). One such comedian quipped that he'd been doing "married" jokes for seven years. He goes on to say he's glad he hasn't had to switch to "divorced" jokes.

Comic Books

Batman has a particularly chronic case of this. He says "I'm Batman!" at least once in every film, and the Nolan movies also include a lot of self-congratulatory talk about what a "symbol" he is. This is also played with, and heavily emphasised by the Web series How It Should Have Ended.

The Guardians of the Galaxy has Groot who, to us at least, only ever says "I AM GROOT" making him a constant reminder of his status as Groot though in actuality he is much wiser and wordier than those three words allow.

Films — Live-Action

Gimli in The Lord of the Rings movies does not deal with other people. It's always a dwarf dealing with an elf or a human. He almost completely refers to other people not by their name, but only by their race. He does refer to both Aragorn and Legolas by their names during their expedition to get the support of the Army of the Dead, but only once each.

In 300, the Spartans are constantly addressing each other as "Spartan", reminding others that they're speaking to Spartans, informing visitors that they're in Sparta, and so forth. Even Gorgo calls her husband Leonidas "Spartan" when trying to catch his attention.

Gamebooks

In the Give Yourself Goosebumps book Return to the Carnival of Horrors you can ask one of the carnival's undead denizens to take a picture with you. When asked if he shows up on camera he responds yes, because he's a ghoul, not a ghost.

Corporal Carrot does this, as a 6-foot-tall human who was raised by dwarves and because of this, still identifies as one. As the dwarves themselves consider dwarfdom a cultural identity instead of a physical race, they agree (a later book involves a human who actually converted). Although, "agree" may be a strong way of putting it; it's more like they can't find a logically consistent way to prove him wrong. After all, he knows how to ha'lk his g'rakha correctly, and claiming that he's not a dwarf despite that puts one's own dwarfhood in question.

And then there's Nobby Nobbs, who's just so ugly and disreputable that no-one can tell what he is. He has to carry a card around certifying that Lord Vetinari, having examined all available evidence including testimony from the midwife who delivered him herself believes that the balance of probability leans slightly towards him being human. Later books have hinted he may be part goblin, and a goblin woman is the only one to ever seriously court him without extenuating circumstances. Even then, several characters remark that she's out of his league.

Lance-Constable Cuddy (who is unquestionably a dwarf, just in case you're not keeping up) of Men at Arms inverts the trope. Throughout the book, people give him the rather credulous inquiry, "Are you a dwarf?" (Generally close-minded people, and he was the first dwarf in the City Watch, so it's fair to be surprised to meet him.) He maintains a reasonable sense of humor about the whole thing — if by "reasonable sense of humor" you mean "unrestrained sarcasm".

In general, with the Watch this trope gets subverted and played straight at the same time. Once you put on the uniform, you are no longer a dwarf, troll, or whatever, you are a member of the Watch, and that's all that matters.

Near the end of The Truth, as William's housemate Mr. Windling goes off on yet another racist rant, one of the other people at the table peels a boiled egg, salts it... and then pulls out a very small ax and very precisely cuts the top off. At this point Mr. Windling realizes he probably shouldn't complain about there being too many dwarves in Ankh-Morpork, at least not until after breakfast.

Klingons are like this in the Star Trek Novel Verse. In the Star Trek: Klingon Empire series in particular, a great many characters are somewhat obsessed with "being Klingon", and make a point of it routinely. It's relatively justified, in that Klingon society has recently undergone tremendous upheaval and is now trying to reaffirm a sense of what being Klingon means. Characters evaluate their own behaviour, and that of their fellows, against the expected conduct of the ideal Klingon. This is particularly true of Toq (who grew up ignorant of his heritage and now embraces it enthusiastically — perhaps a little too enthusiastically), and Klag (who takes his obligations to the "Order of the Bat'leth" extremely seriously).

In The Secret of Platform 13, one character is a water nymph who repeatedly notes that she's not a mermaid, pointing out her feet. It's Lampshaded at one point that nobody knows why being mistaken for a mermaid would upset her so much (especially since nobody actually does it).

While not especially smug about it, the thranx from the Humanx Commonwealth series constantly make mention of their insectoid traits, either commenting on the physiological differences between themselves and humans or voicing perplexity at how humans cope without insect-like bodies (too few limbs, skin not hard enough, etc).

In the Redwall books, hares are a proud badass warrior race, despite seeming eccentrically goofy on many occasions. Rabbits on the other hand are extremely posh, shallow and cowardly. One recurring theme throughout the series: do not call a hare a rabbit if you value your currently aligned jaw.

Live-Action TV

Angel: Subverted with Lorne. He doesn't mind it at all if people mistake his green skin for makeup. Especially if it gets him into Caesar's Palace. The first time this happens, he accidentally runs into a librarian who stammers, "You're—...you're—!!" before sighing, "...from the children's reading program!" At this, Lorne considers dropping by and reading some Harry Potter.

Klingons are obsessed with their Klingon-ness. Worf in The Next Generation is exceptionally bad, even annoying his fellow Klingons with his inability to speak like a normal person and irritation over not following every old tradition to the letter. Hinted to be justified in that he was raised by humans and therefore has an idealized vision of his race and a need to be more Klingon than Kahless.

Similarly with his son Alexander who was also raised by humans (specifically Worf's adoptive parents) and also had a thing for honor much like Worf except he was an incompetent Klingon even to modern Klingons.

Cardassians also make it a habit to remind everyone of the superiority of their race and explain that everyone just misunderstands their superior culture. But then, SpaceNazi is their hat. In one of their first appearances it was explained that this is actually genetic, and a Cardassion outside a clear chain of command will instinctively seek dominance.

You could make a drinking game out of how often Spock (the Proud Scholar Race Guy) says, "I am a Vulcan." Once again, this could be over-compensation at work — Spock is only half-Vulcan, and the few full-blooded Vulcans we meet in TOS stray surprisingly far from his ideals, and he acts even more stereotypically Vulcan when his father is around.

In the episode where an alien materializes historical people from their memories (which may explain why Kahless appears as a ridgeless barbarian), Spock apologizes to Surak for experiencing a moment of joy upon seeing him. Surak doesn't care.

"We are the Borg." When confronted by a gigantic cube, that frequently in the series has sparked a feeling of cold dread, their introduction is unlikely to be necessary. Justified in that their actions are highly ordered and regimented, and this and the rest of their standard hail is basically their way of informing you of how utterly screwed you are!

Chakotay from Voyager has a habit of connecting every topic of conversation to some spiritual or cultural element of his Native American heritage.

If Tyrion from Game of Thrones doesn't mention his status as a dwarf (in this case, an actual little person, not a fantasy dwarf) during a conversation, rest assured that almost anyone he's talking to will bring it up. He has a rant about this late in season six, mostly about how everybody uses the same five or six jokes about him being a dwarf.

For that matter, Jon Snow being recognized as Lord Eddard Stark's bastard son is brought up by almost every person he meets for the first time. One would almost think that bastard children were rare in Westeros (considering how people always recognize Jon as Ned's illegitimate son and address him as such) but these illegitimate children are all over the place. However, Jon — as the acknowledged illegitimate son of a lord raised by his lord father — is the most famous illegitimate child in this series and, with his love and admiration of Ned Stark, introduces himself by saying Ned is his father in multiple instances.

In the song "Country Boy," Aaron Lewis wants to remind you that he's a country boy by calling up every country cliche he can in the span of 4 minutes or so. It's basically a Jeff Foxworthy routine played straight and set to music.

Tabletop Games

Nearly every tabletop player will engage at this at some point, often overlapping with Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me. For example, anyone playing a non-human character in D&D will say things like "I'm an elf, I have darkvision!" or "I'm a halfling, I can fit in tight places!" Similarly applies to character classes, where players might say "I'm a cleric, I can turn undead!" Justified as the players are saying this for the benefit of other players and the GM, and is a natural part of play.

Video Games

Mass Effect 2: "I am KROGAN!" Although Grunt, at least, means it not as identity but equivalence. That is, he's not saying "I am a krogan"; he's saying "I am what it means to be krogan". (He was genetically engineered to be the "perfect" krogan warrior, so it's hard to argue.)

Inverted by Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, which sees fit to remind you that you're a Lombax at every opportunity. Makes sense if you're meeting a new character, but even ones you see multiple times continue to remark on your Lombaxness, and Ratchet never acts like he's tired of being reminded of his own species or comments on it at all, despite being a Deadpan Snarker. Of course, this comes the territory of being among the Last of His Kind (at least in his dimension, at any rate).

Magnus Shalefist in Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura is literally this, always reminding you of how awesome it is to be a native mountain dwarf affiliated with one of the major clans. While he is a dwarf, he's from the city, real name Malcolm Schulefest. All the usual stuff about gold, beards, and fighting he got from an Almanac of All Things Dwarven - written by a human no less - and he talks it up to cover his own insecurities at being too far from his heritage. In the end, it turns out he is related to a clan, the legendary Iron Clan, which he leads or even becomes king of all the dwarves.

Web Comics

In the "Federation" arc of Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger, Groonch the G'norch makes a point of emphasizing his warrior-race pride (his hat, given by Captain Pidorq, is "token noble savage"), only to have it subverted when it's pointed out that his "race" has dozens of languages and hundreds of cultures, and "noble warrior" isn't even in the top ten....

Parodied in the HomestuckParadox Space strip Summerteen Romance, in which Dave is reading Karkat's script for a romantic comedy starring the trolls out loud, and adding his own "improvements". After Karkat explains he adapted it for human culture, Dave starts reading the scored out troll concepts (for instance "lusus" crossed out and replaced with "dad"). Then he gives Feferi a line where every second word is Have I Mentioned I'm A Troll Today? with a line though it. Karkat is not amused.

Texans have a reputation for it amongst Americans. Especially the flag bit. (They may use their state flag too, which just looks like a highly simplified version of the national flag.)

If Spartans count for addressing each other as "Spartan" and constantly reminding people they are Spartans, then the US Marines belong on here as well, since they act exactly the same way. Do not, under any circumstances, call a Marine a "soldier" unless you intend to insult them.

Americans frequently loudly identify with whatever country their ancestors emigrated from. Irish Americans in particular are noted for this (perhaps unsurprisingly), but Germans, Italians and many others get in on it. However, it should be noted that, as a rule, most ignore their Anglo-Saxon ancestors, assuming them to be "the baseline", so someone 7/8 English and 1/8 Italian will insist he's Italian-American.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy